During my exile away from London I re-read Austerlitz by WG Sebald. Although it's not a conventional novel (and therefore wouldn't be something I'd usually like) it sort of fascinates me. I have ideas concerning what it's really about - it strikes me as an elegy for a civilisation, a civilisation mortally wounded in 1914 and then murdered by the Nazis. Sebald, alas, is dead now, so we couldn't ask him. It's a fine piece of genuinely original work, anyway, even if you do have to wait until page 200 before it starts to get interesting.

Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett also gets the thumbs-up. He really is getting better even as the Discworld novels become so numerous that one can't remember all the titles any more. Some of the early ones had the sense of becoming a bit frantic towards the end, so that one kept reading simply to get to the end, rather than out of pleasure. I remember Pyramids was a particular offender in that respect. But this one has very few faults - the revelation of Sergeant Jackrum's secret turned out a trifle anti-climactic, but that's mere quibbling.

Natasha's Dance by Orlando Figes is shaping up to be something special, though I'm still only up to the 1870s. I haven't read any of his stuff since I was an undergraduate and it didn't make much of an impression on me at the time: I think this is the book his whole career has been leading up to. It's certainly filled in some gaping holes in my knowledge about Russian culture in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, though I think it's the kind of thing that one can read with most profit if one already knows what the big political facts were, so that one has a context to fit things into. I'll certainly be devouring the rest in the next few days.

Today I went for lunch with two smart, good-looking young women. So – naturally – I wished to be suave, scintillating, sophisticated.

So – naturally – I talked about pensions.

Actually that didn’t happen, though I thought about introducing the subject. Pensions have been an issue I’ve been wanting to blog about for a while, in connection with some other things. First off, the USA. Social Security has been getting attention for a number of years now but no-one really wants to think about it. The problem is that it’s an unfunded scheme: current payments are covered by current receipts. One of the evil fundamentalist neocon fascist policies favoured by the Republicans is the part-privatisation of the scheme. They point out that since the Social Security fund is a collective rather than individual scheme, a lot of people – millions – are paying payroll taxes which they think are buying them a future entitlement. They’re wrong: they’re paying today’s pensions. The Republicans suggest allowing workers to use part of their money to buy private-sector pensions, the fortunes of which are tied to the stock market, which should ensure that the fund grows at a rate higher than inflation. It’s a plausible idea, though it’s also the case that the current system will stay solvent for the foreseeable future so long as the economy continues to grow at historic rates.

One has to be an expert to adjudicate on these things. It’s worth saying, though, that the Bush plan is a serious attempt to address a real problem, though it’s far from proven that it would be the best approach. If I have any left-wing readers I haven’t alienated yet, may I suggest that when you hear the inevitable scare stories about this, say to yourself: ‘it’s not necessarily bad because Bush wants it’ and repeat as necessary. I promise to do the same, mutatis mutandis, next time I hear Charles Kennedy speaking about education, or something.

But the Yanks are sitting relatively pretty where it comes to pensions. The English-speaking countries as a whole are, in fact: Britain could do better and the government is trying to address the problem (with state second pensions and the like). But the real problems arise when you look at continental European countries, which have higher pensions, lower retirement ages and less favourable demographics. France and Germany are going to hit real trouble in a couple of decades. Italy is worst off of all, which is no surprise, since from my experience of that in many respects marvellous country, it is effectively a gerontocracy. In a couple of decades there are going to be a lot of very disgruntled pensioners in the EU, unless the pension structures there get serious reform. But it might already be too late for that as the grey vote is already a reality, quite besides the strength of the trades unions, especially in Germany. The alternative to ratting on state pension entitlements would be to elevate taxes to cover the funds shortfall, except if the continental EU countries retain their current tax rates, that will scarcely be possible.

Given all this, it’s hardly surprising that the EU countries are even more in denial about the pensions problem than the USA.

So what? Well, nothing happens for a single cause. That’s one of my articles of historical faith: no event ever has a single cause. The witlessness of statements such as ‘the

Iraq

war was all about oil’ was always one of the chief motivators of my dislike of the anti-war movment. By itself, the pensions problem facing the big continental countries is not insurmountable. The trouble is that it will hit at a time when other problems are likely to come to a head.

First, oil. Big disclaimer: no-one knows what’s going to happen to oil prices in the long term. There are thousands of people who do nothing all day but think about oil prices and they can’t agree, so what chance do I have of predicting well? But let’s assume oil prices fall from their current high, thus removing one of the key incentives for greater efficiency, then trend upwards again over the next couple of decades, as easily-accessible reserves run down. The result of that will be to make it difficult for European industry to create enough jobs to knock a hole in the European unemployment rate, which everyone agrees is chronically high.

Second, race hate. This is not going to go away. Recent events – the mosque attacks that followed the murder of Van Gogh, the racist chants in the Bernabeu Stadium - have proved yet again that the most apparently advanced societies have demons lurking in their shadows. As Clive James once pointed out, Germany before 1933 was arguably the most cultured, educated society in the world. ‘It didn’t help a bit.’ The so-called visible minorities are going to constitute a larger percentage of the EU’s population in, say, 2020 than now. And the Muslim element within that percentage will contain a lot of people for whom the military/political defeat of Islamism is merely another reason to feel alienated and hostile. (Of course, it could go the other way: serious Middle Eastern reform and the growth of democracy there could defuse a lot of Islamic alienation. Take all this with a spoonful of salt.)

Now throw into this witches’ brew of angry pensioners, chronic high unemployment and race hate an oil price spike, which would throw another few million people out of work, and the conditions would be right for a real neo-fascist threat to European democracy.

In part ‘I wants to make your flesh creep’, but then also thinking about worst-case scenarios is just part of a responsible debate. The essential thing is not to blame anybody but think of how to tackle the issue.

In the first place, I doubt any such threat would succeed in overthrowing the democratic order in any European state. An open fascist threat to democracy would instantly unite all other parties against it. National coalition governments would be formed to impose austerity and repress street violence firmly: any truly dangerous fascist parties would be outlawed. History doesn’t repeat itself mechanistically like that. The continental Europeans have learnt that much from the 1930s, namely, don’t pussyfoot about with direct fascist threats to democracy (Islamism isn’t such a threat: it can kill people, but cannot seize power, not in Europe anyway.) People do learn some lessons – the really big, obvious ones – from history. (The main reason why Iraq is not Vietnam is, simply, Vietnam.) But the threat might not be completely open and obvious, which might tempt some unscrupulous right-wingers to adopt at least some fascist themes. We can surely agree that it would be best to prevent the threat from arising in the first place.

The best single way to draw the sting would be a dynamic economy. This is why it’s so important to get rid of EU agricultural subsidies (the main benefits of opening the EU more to Third World food exports would accrue to Europe, not to the Third World), reform the EU countries’ labour markets to enable the growth of the information economy – the so-called Lisbon agenda. Neither of these seems to be happening yet, though as the full consequences of the eastwards expansion of the EU arrive, the Common Agricultural Policy will have to put down. (The key indicator of that happening will be when the Agriculture Commissioner insists that the latest round of CAP reforms will make no significant difference – meaning the opposite.) Both are measures that Margaret Thatcher would strongly approve of.

It may be that a strong dose of Thatcherism is the best prophylactic against fascism. At any rate, I can’t think of any obviously left-wing policies that might actually work. Simply herding schoolchildren en masse into diversity awareness seminars isn’t going to cut it.

(PS I seem to remember Steven Den Beste of blessed memory pursuing a similar line of argument – about European vulnerability to fascism - at one time. The above is probably just a warmed-over watered-down version of his ideas, extruded through the warped mesh of my own mind. )

Sunday I had the privilege of hearing the Moonlight Sonata played live. I can’t think of anything to say about it except that it’s one of those pieces one can listen to hundreds of times and not exhaust its depths: a true source of inspiration. The sonata that followed was depressingly modern. M., sitting next to me, nodded off. I think I may have done as well, and the sound of snoring from elsewhere in the audience indicated that we weren’t alone in our opinion. I took the first chance to go home and watch the rugby. Jason Robinson runs like Jonny Wilkinson kicks.

But to be honest, I’m really using it as an excuse for another moan about the Dictators of Safety. The concert was in a small church in North London, a church with one entrance and exit door. Bizarrely, the council insisted on placing a green fire exit sign over the door before the concert could take place. It’s the door we all came in by, for heaven’s sake, do they think we can’t remember where we came in? It’s not as though the doorway isn’t clearly visible from any part of the building. Apparently these things are worse in Canada, where the green signs have to be illuminated and kept on permanently, even during services. Way to create a reverent atmosphere, guys.

Last night’s concert was better. Schubert, Mozart (the same concerto which we missed on the occasion of the Offence Against Terpsichore) and Mendelssohn, the 3rd Symphony, the ‘Scottish’. Was there ever a sunnier composer than he? In his world even Scotland is sunny. I don’t think he gets the credit he deserves from classical music snobs because he’s so accessible, and snobs believe that if it’s not difficult to listen to it can’t have depth. Mendelssohn – in the 3rd and 4th Symphonies, the Violin Concerto, the Octet, the Hebrides Overture - is proof that it’s not true.

I walked back to the Tube past the Other Palace (of Westminster) which sailed through the night like a stately galleon cutting through the ocean of history. It all felt pretty good.

Wretchard (link via Instapundit)has been pondering some big questions. I was doing likewise earlier today: the phrase 'blessed is he who is not offended because of me' (Matt. 11:6; Luke 7:23) kept running through my head and insisting that I examine it.

So I did, and at once thought about London Transport. If Christ is the image of humanity, the Second Adam, the Son of Man, then all of us are figures of Christ. Travelling on the Tube is offensive, though: it's impossible to be confined like that and not take offence at the others in the carriage - which is why no-one ever talks on the Tube. (Well, that and the noise.) So we have created a civilisation in our biggest cities which makes taking offence at the existence of other people a daily experience.

The big cities are where this effect is most concentrated. If - as I always do - one compares this experience with life in the Middle Ages, the offence simply didn't happen. People did take offence at each other, but they took offence at people they were likely to know: the fact of being offended by the others was not the whole of their experience of the others, as it is when one is crushed into Tube carriage.

This may just be an extended moan about the miseries of commuting. In fact it is that, but not just that. And it's not a specifically Christian theme either: one could replace the concern over not taking offence at the other (who is Christ, except neither of us know it) with a Kantian concern not to treat human beings as means - what I take to be the secular equivalent of the Christian (and Confucian) Golden Rule.

When one gets to the really big questions, one finds that everyone already knows the answers.

I tried to post this yesterday but Typepad has been adding some bells and whistles and the PC I was using freaked out. So this is the short version of what I wrote then.

George W. is not a fundamentalist. That's not an opinion, it's a fact. Fundamentalists believe that only Christians (and usually only the right sort of Christians) get to heaven. W. expressed the belief, after the Columbia disaster, that the crew had got 'home'. In the parlance of Southern US evangelical Christianity, 'home' is heaven (check out O Brother Where Art Thou).

Game over, everybody in. The Columbia's crew included a Jew and a Hindu and some atheists too for all I know. No fundamentalist could have said what W. said on that occasion - the most moving thing I ever heard him say.

I doubt any fundamentalist could ever win a US election. That's an opinion, not a fact.

Is it fair for the Democrats to blame themselves? Yes it is, and it‘s healthier for them to blame themselves than assume that 59 million people are stupid. But it’s also the case that elections are lost rather than won. Certainly, the Democrats need to rid themselves of the Mooreon incubus which exerts disproportionate influence over the party. But that might not be enough. The truly horrifying prospect for Democrats is that there might be nothing they can do until the Republicans become so tired and lame that they can be relied on beat themselves.
The Congress results may be the more significant, in revealing the historic trends at work. The Democrats held Congress for decades but started to lose it in the 1960s. It was during that period of Democrat control that Roosevelt was able to win four elections: in other words, it was a Democrat age. During the 1930s and 1940s the Republicans were in much the same position the Democrats are in today: a party alienated from the mainstream and so consumed with hate for their demon-figures that they only talked to each other. Hence twenty years of Democrat occupancy of the White House.
I think this guy might have it at least partly right. Shifting right won’t necessarily help. Shifting left will be even worse. Doing nothing seems like a council of despair. But the fact is – as he himself admits – that there just don’t seem to be any solutions to the Democrats’ electoral conundrum. Maybe there aren’t any, for now. But nothing in politics is eternal and eventually the long cycle will work in the Democrats’ favour again.
They should not, however, be under the illusion that this will definitely be in two years or four. It might be two decades before the tide turns (as it did about 1930, and again about 1960) and the Democrats begin to regain Congress and start winning more elections than they lose. And when it comes, it will not be because of anything the Democrats do, but because the Republicans lose touch. All parties in power do.
The fact is that the fate of the Democrats for the next few electoral cycles may be out of their hands. They should fight, of course, and if specific circumstances make it possible they should pounce and win – say another third-party candidacy, which gave the Democrats victory in 1912 or 1992 – but otherwise all they may be able to do is wait. (Getting shot of the Mooreons is something they should do because it's right in itself, not as a means to electability.) The philosopher Alain once said: in some ages, one can’t hope to go forward: not going back may be all you can achieve.

I say this as someone who wanted Bush to win this one but would otherwise have voted Democrat every time since 1912. And with that sombre reflection, enough until next week.

Wretchard declares the significance of the US election result: 'Thoughtful people within the Liberal establishment must now accept, or at least seriously consider the possibility that... the world is indeed facing a new fascist threat in the shape of radical Islam. It is not imaginary'.

Oh but it is, Wretchard. The BBC has said so.

I've been meaning for a while to say something about The Power of Nightmares. I haven't watched it. Virtually the only thing I watch TV for nowadays is to see David Starkey in full spate or to watch the Divine Boot in action. But I've been informed by reliable informants (full disclosure: one of them is my mother) that a major theme is the idea that politicians have shifted from selling us dreams to selling us nightmares, that fear has replaced hope as the key motivating factor in political appeals.

How can I put this? Like most left-wing propaganda this idea is bad history and bad psychology. (Left-wing propaganda is usually bad economics as well, but that doesn't enter the equation here.)
The psychology part first: it is human nature to enjoy being alternately scared and uplifted or inspired. No politician could hope to succeed without offering a bit of both.
Historically, the idea is even feebler. Is the use of fear such a novelty? Have these people forgotten the Red Scare? McCarthyism? Le Grand Peur? The Gordon Riots? Stalin's show trials? Is the threat of terrorism any less real than the threats those outbursts of mania were responding to?
But the slightly more sophisticated version of the argument is that there is not a single, tightly organised and disciplined enemy organisation called al-Qaeda. But who ever said there was? W. didn't declare war against al-Qaeda: he declared war on terror, which for our purposes means that network of Islamist terror networks inspired by a broad, common vision of jihad leading to ubiquitous sharia for Muslims, extermination for the Jews and everyone else as dhimmis. We use the term 'al-Qaeda' as a form of shorthand. And the BBC is no better than anyone else in this respect, using the term al-Qaeda quite freely in its broadcasts.
On the last point - the alleged absence of hopes or dreams from present political discourse - the programme's ground is even weaker. One of the chief critiques of the neocons is the alleged implausibility of spreading democracy in the greater Middle East. (That would be as implausible as an election in Afghanistan, one presumes.) Isn't that a dream and a hope? How about this? (I've linked to this before and make no apology for doing so a second time: it may not be the last.)

'Anywhere, anytime ordinary people are given the chance to choose, the choice is the same: freedom, not tyranny; democracy, not dictatorship; the rule of law, not the rule of the secret police.
The spread of freedom is the best security for the free. It is our last line of defense and our first line of attack. And just as the terrorist seeks to divide humanity in hate, so we have to unify it around an idea. And that idea is liberty.
We must find the strength to fight for this idea and the compassion to make it universal.'

And:
'...the liberty we seek is not for some but for all, for that is the only true path to victory in this struggle.'

Yes. And under the circumstances in which we live today, he was quite right to follow that up with:

'But first we must explain the danger.'

Yes. Some people, however, don't want to hear, and would rather believe that it's all just a story.